WHAT HAPPENS AFTER TONSILLECTOMY SURGERY?

I am a 22 year old female and I had my tonsils removed 16 days ago. The first 11 days were ok: take your pain medication and the antibiotics they give you. I recommend setting an alarm to wake yourself up at night to take the pain meds, because if you go all night without anything, the morning hurts 100 times worse. Drink water to stay hydrated and keep your throat moist. Try ice pops (non acidic), they help. Eat food, soup, mashed potatoes, etc. because the pain medication on an empty stomach could cause vomitting which is just not pleasant.

On day 11 I started spitting up blood and had to go to the ER. My doctor met me there, after I had already filled a 16oz plastic cup, and they had to bring me to the OR and re-cauterize/stitch me to stop the bleeding. Afterward, I have had the worst pain in my right ear, I have vomitted twice from taking the pain medication on an empty stomach. I have had headaches and stomach pain. I am not happy, but I know this will pass and I will be better off in the long run.

Give yourself time to heal, and treat your body well during that time, the pain was not as bad as I was told it would be (until the rebleed), and if you take care of yourself the pain is manageable.

I'm a 38 y/o male. I had my tonsils and adenoids removed 11 days ago. I've suffered from a lifetime of tonsilitis and strepthroat. I also have sleep apnea. My huge tonsils needed to go!

From a pain standpoint, this has been like a very bad case of strep throat. Plenty of fluids helps; for me warm liquids work better than cold. I've not eaten much in the way of solid foods. I've managed to eat cottage cheese and runny mashed potatoes. I can't wait to try a scrambled egg tomorrow as I'm tired of broth and applesauce.

My biggest problem has been due to my sleep apnea. Without my CPAP machine, I stop breathing over 100 times an hour, or almost twice a minute. With my throat so raw and swollen, it wasn't until day 8 that I was able to use my CPAP machine. That's 8 days without sleep! I had to have someone around me 24/7 to make sure I was breathing ok, as I would drift off to sleep, then stop breathing. Now, I can sleep with my CPAP for about 2-3 hours at a time, but can't sleep a whole night through yet.

If you have sleep apnea, make sure you take this into account! (FYI, my CPAP is set at a pressure of 16)

I'm a 35 year old male and have had a pretty easy time of it compared to many. I was eating and drinking straight away but it felt like i was swallowing razor blades for the first few days.
This got better every day and after about 4 days I could handle almost anything as long as it wasn't spicy.
I used paracetomol for the pain and I stopped taking that at day 7 as the only real pain I got then was ear and jaw ache when I yawn.
13 days in and I'm almost 100% apart from the occasional scab in my throat which isn't painful just makes me feel sick.

I had a tonsillectomy and coblation palatoplasty which removed part of my soft palate and my uvula.

Hey, I got my Tonsils taken out on friday, am a 29 year old guy in the UK.

The pain seems to be getting worse though! today my ears are killing me, but my throat goes through periods of really hurting, to just an annoying pain.

will try and drink loads more water, and thanks for tips above, will keep ya all posted!

Tony

hey! im an 18 yr old female, my surgery was one week ago and i must say this experience has not been pleasant. this was my 6th surgery, including several sinus surgeries and a major spinal fusion with instrumentation, and this is probably number 2 in rank of pain/annoyance. i had figured that this would be a piece of cake compared to spinal surgery, but now i'm not so sure...i'll just go by order of day for easier reading...

DAY ONE: my surgery went well and i was up and asking questions with a cup of grape flavored ice chips right after, but once they gave me narcotics...things went down hill. threw up a bunch in the recovery room, and it hurt bad since i had just gotten out of surgery. luckily i still had my IV so getting meds to make my stomach settle was easier and faster. once i got home i felt fine though, pain wasn't bad and i even ate some jello and pudding. overall i was still convinced that there would be no issues with it.

DAY TWO: woke up feeling like someone had kicked me inside my mouth! but once i got some meds down all was fine, just very tired. i sat around and around 4 i started feeling very queasy, and then everything i had eaten came right up which hurt horribly. after that i tried eating a popsicle since i felt a little better and immediately my stomach started flipping a bit but everything stayed down so i hoped i would be fine. when it came time for my night-time meds the second they got to my stomach it just went crazy, i'm serious i never though i would stop dry heaving (which is worse than actually having something come up, trust me). my mom had to call in at midnight to ask what to do and the doctor thought i should go on a different medicine i already had from a previous surgery so we switched.

DAY THREE: i don't really remember this day because the new med was much stronger than the other one. but as i have been told we bumped it up to two pills instead of one for the evening and that was way too much for me...i guess i started going on about wearing a turban and how i was on a boat with t-pain and such...needless to say we decided that was not the drug for me. so tylenol it was.

DAY FOUR: sat around and knitted with a friend. nothing too crazy. still couldn't eat more than a cup of pudding a day. drank water like i was dying.

DAY FIVE: this is supposedly the worst day and i completely agree. i woke up hoping to go to church and began crying the ear pain was so bad. staying in bed all day, ate a few spoon-fulls of jello.

DAY SIX: felt remarkably better for some odd reason, was able to go to store with my mom and say a few words if needed (typing messages out on my phone was getting to be aggravating) and just felt like i was turning the corner. still on tylenol. ate a FULL pudding cup, yay!

DAY SEVEN (yesterday): other than a dull ache and a bit of pain while swallowing i felt awesome! definitely turned the corner. ate..a spoon-full of ice cream, a few bites of pears, a spoon-full of peanut butter, and three pieces of pizza later in the evening. as for the pizza at that point i didn't care how much it hurt i just wanted food!!

DAY EIGHT: well for the first few hours of it i feel pretty good still. haven't had medicine in about 7 hours so i'm going to need some to keep things under control but i'm hoping for a really good day. i even have a photo-shoot scheduled for later on so things are looking up :-)

as for the whole experience i found it more an annoyance than an end of the world crisis. i started off at 120 lbs and am currently at 114 lbs so i lost about 6 in the course of a week. once i can get down more substantial food i'm sure i will gain it back fast, i'm hungry :p

Can anyone help me i am in day 4 post op and i just want to know if these things are normal. When i drink water it sometimes comes out my nose -_- i cought up bloood sometimes not too often and it comes in like mucus.

I had my tonsils and adenoids removed this past Wedneday the 15th. Today is day 3 for me. I have not felt any real pain yet and I'm hoping it stays that way. As soon as I woke up from recovery I started drinking and keeping myself hydrated. I have taken 2 percocet pills every 4 hours for the first two days. Now I've scaled it back a bit since I'm not in a lot of pain. After reading all the horror stories on here I hope that the pain doesn't hit me all at once. So far I've eaten chicken noodle soup, toast with butter, some McD's fries, ice pops, and plain fried rice. My throat doesn't really hurt, its just uncomfortable.

Hi All,

Jusy wanted to share my experiance of a tonsillectomy, I had mine out on Tuesday 2nd June and am now nearly fully recovered.

The operation in it self was easy, woke up and was in slight pain but full of pain relieif drugs so didn't really feel it. Was sent home on the wednesday lunch time with lots of pain meds and told that i needed to rest and that the pain would get worse day 5-10! They wern't joking!!

Up to day 5 i was recovering well, has been eating, drinking and sleeping well. The pain was nothing worse that really bad tonsillitus and managed to get through it by sleeping and good DVD's. I only took paracetomol for the pain as the other med made me feel drowsy. The most important thing was to eat and drink - i didn't think i could drink so much water! It did ease the pain keeping the scabs hydrated and by the sat i was eating a full dinner of pasta and chicken.

Woke up on day 6 feeling tired and the pain seemed to have got worse, i was warned this would happen so didn't think much of it and carried on as normally as i could with my routine of sleeping, eating, drinking and TV.
On the evening of day 6 i was sat watching the TV and felt a warm trickling sensation in my throat, i ran to the bathroom and discoverd i was bleeding! Just a few mouthfulls but I went into full panic mode and my boyfriend calmed me dowm and made me drink cold water. This seemed to stop the bleeding - and i then spent the rest of the evening trying not to move! Went to bed that evening and the same thing happened again - not enough to be worried about (my boyfriend said!) but enough that i didn't sleep and was pertified!

Day seven, felt the worst yet! Throat felt like it was on fire, earaches, tempeture - could just swallow the paracetomal but couldn't eat anything. By the evening i was even worse but though i had better try and eat due to all the medication - i forced dowm chicken stew. Bad idea......with in half an hour of eating i was bleeding again and this time lots of blood. I tried ice, cold water gargling and nothing would stop it, it was coming out of my nose!!! By now by boyfriend was panicking too and phoned the hopital who told me to come straight in.

Straight to A&E which is a 30 mins drive away ( scariest car journey in the world) My boyfriend was driving like a racing driver!! The nurses took one look at me and sent for ENT Specailist. By now (an hour and a half later) the bleeding had stopped. The ENT doctor had a look and told me i was being re admitted with a nasty infection! He had no idea how i caught this as I had eaten and drank more that enough! Just one of those things. Any way after another two night stay in hospital and lots of IV antibiotics they sent me home again.

Day 11 - 15: Still felt rough, the earaches were causing me more hassle than my throat as when i talked, ate or drank it felt like a shooting / stabbing pain in my ears and neck. This went after about four days and then all of a sudden i woke up one morning feeling okay! Day 15 was my turning point and i haven't looked back.

It was a horrible experiance that i would never want to repeat, there were days when i cried uncontrollably and just wanted to turn back the clock. You need a good support network of friends and family who can sit with you, cook for you, listen to you cry and vent off about how you "wish you had never had it done" and "is this amount of pain normal. it can't be"! Belive me it is, and you will get through it.

Take it easy for the first few weeks after you feel better as you will still feel tired and sore. My throat is still sore everymorning and i still have strange senations in my throat but i think i am nearly normal! You will get better and it will be worth it!!!

xxxx

I had my tonsillectomy on July 9th and am now feeling quite better. I had only the left tonsil removed, as it was extremely swollen and all of my sore throats since childhood (I'm a 36 year old female) have been on the left side. Due to the fact the left tonsil had recently become even more enlarged - so much so that it pressed on my uvula- my ENT wanted me to have it out and biopsied (it was benign). I had read others' posts about wishing they hadn't had a tonsillectomy after the fact, but believe me, when your tonsil swells to the point of making you gag and throw up you'll do anything to get rid of it!
Immediately after the surgery I was fine. I was only at the hospital a total of 4 hours. I even felt so good and was worried about getting sick to my stomach from the pain meds that I had my husband get me some adults' extra strength Tylenol liquid, thinking it would be enough for the pain. Wrong!
Days 1-2 were a little rough, but not worse that a strep throat infection. I was grateful for the help of friends and family that cooked for us, leaving my husband to take care of me and our 3 children. I rested and drank cold liquids. I didn't try much more than Jello, broth, pudding. etc because I was worried about keeping the scab in good shape after the horror stories I'd read.
Days 3-7 were awful! Ear pain was horrendous, and drinking made it worse. Rather than occasional pain, it became constant. I eagerly switched to the Lortab elixyr the ENT had prescribed, and it did help with the pain somewhat better than Tylenol. It upset my stomach, just making me queasy, so I was switched to Tylenol 3 and Phenergan, I did end up alternating between the T3 and Lortab, and that worked best. You need to be careful, though, as both meds have aceteminophen in them and it's dangerous to get too much at once! Read those labels!
On Day 5 I went to the ER. I wasn't able to keep water down - not that I was throwing up, but I had lots of swelling and it seemed to make me gag on the water. I felt dehydrated and so the pain became unbearable. Big mistake going to the ER ( but don't let this scare you away -this was only my experience at this particular ER). The doctor seemed like he thought I was being a whiner, telling me I just had to tough it out. They gave me IV fluids and Fentanyl for pain. I told the nurse I had trouble with some IV pain meds so please watch me closely, but he just put the Fentanyl in the IV and walked out. Thank goodness my Mom came with me (hubby was working) because the Fentanyl caused my blood pressure to go down to 80/30 and I passed out! She had to go running for help. My blood pressure cuff wasn't connected to a nurse's station or anything, and I couldv'e gone into severe shock or worse. After they gave me another med to counteract the Fentanyl, the doctor came back and said my blood work showed I wasn't truly dehydrated, and he said, "Since you can't handle the pain med there's nothing else we can do for you." Jerk. I told him I was worried about the scabs starting to bleed if I couldn't get the water down and he said, "I think you're talking yourself into bleeding." I felt like a heel for even going into the ER. I did manage to force down lukewarm water and felt a little better that day.
The night of Day 6, I noticed bloody phlegm, but didn't worry too much as I knew that might occur. However, on Day 7 I was just sitting and reading when I suddenly gurgled up blood! I tried not to panic and drank a little ice water. It kept bleeding, so hubby called the ENT and he said to go to the ER. The bleeding had stopped by the time we got there, or at least slowed to almost nothing. I explained to the nurse and ER doc what had happened two days earlier, and they were WONDERFUL to me. The ENT decided I needed to be put under again and recauterized to ensure the bleeding stopped for good. I freaked out - here I'd just had the most difficult week of my life and I'd need to do it again? No way! He reassured me that the recovery wouldn't start over completely, and that a large reason for so much of my pain was the fact that the cautery of the surgery site hadn't "taken" well. I went into surgery at midnight and it only took 15 minutes. The next morning I already felt MUCH better, and the ENT said he was glad he'd redone the cautery, as I'd had a blood vessel that was exposed and leaking. It really was nothing and helped so much, so don't be scared if you're told that your wounds need to be recauterized. I was amazed at how much better I felt and I have continued to recover more quickly.
I am now on Day 14 and feeling good. A little sore, but nothing much, and I'm still trying to take it easy.Still not eating a completely normal diet, since I'm waiting for this second scab to fall off. By the way, the scab falling off really had me worried, but it was NOTHING the first time, and that's when I was having so much trouble to begin with. I just plan to eat some bread or something when it starts this time. I've heard people say they think it'd be awful to swallow the scabs, but I'd rather do that and not think about it than cough and gag it up and have to look at it, lol!
If you're facing tonsillectomy in the future, good luck and try not to dwell too much on all the horror stories. Everyone is different and you'll most likely be glad in the end that you had it done. If you're recovering and in the tough stages, just hang in there and do the things that work for you to help with the pain. And go ahead and feel sorry for yourself...you deserve a lot of sympathy. It will get better!

thanks for posting your experiences i am 45 and going into surgery in less than 2 weeks for tonsils. also i have scarring tissue they will remove at the lower tonsil area and trimming up the hanging thing to stop my snoring. looks like i might have a hard time i will follow advise meds on time, food of some form with them, rest well thanks again.

Hi there! I'm a 20 year old female, just had an adenoid and tonsillectomy on Monday, August 3rd. I'm going to bold all my suggestions so people know where to look for help :o
Also, foods to have handy: Your favorite jello flavor, pudding (pudding feels SO good on the throat), smoothie of some sort (we got this Yoplait frozen fruit smoothie mix at Costco that was delicious, just add milk, I added soy milk, and blend), mashed potatoes (all kinds, sweet potato were good, traditional, etc), italian ice, popsicles, juice

This was my first surgery, so I was actually pretty nervous. However, the whole surgery went really well, and only took about 18 minutes (plus another 40 for the anesthesia to kick in and wear off). I woke up in the recovery room with a burnt metallic like taste in my mouth, with my tongue feeling strange, but in little to no pain (this must have been the effects of the pain meds and anesthesia still in my system). I got home, watched television and movies all day, and honestly did not feel that uncomfortable. I was even able to eat some italian ice and mashed potatoes relatively easily.

The pain got worse at night, so I took some of the lortab elixir (hydrocodone) and tried to fall asleep. This is where things got difficult. I would lay trying to fall asleep for about 30 minutes, then would slowly fall asleep, and start snoring. The snoring kind of made my throat and mouth burn, so as soon as I started snoring I would wake up. I got pretty much no sleep because of the pain and the difficulty to breathe. Also, my uvula was HUGE! I looked at it in the mirror several times and it seriously seemed to be taking up my entire mouth. At one point I thought I was going to choke on it in my sleep. I suggest somehow propping your head up, or sleeping somewhat sitting up to avoid some of the breathing issues. This seemed to help for me.

Tuesday - That morning, I woke up and felt like hell. My mouth was dry because I breathed through my mouth all night I know it's hard, but try to breathe through your nose! This will help keep your mouth moist, so the scabs will not become hard and dry! That whole day I slept on the couch, watched movies, and ate more mashed potatoes. I was starving, so I sucked up the pain. I only really ate after 30 minutes of taking the lortab elixir, to avoid any excruciating pain. Ice chunks are also good. That night I slept way better, not sure why. I slept the entire night without taking any medicine, made sure I breathed through my nose, and felt like a 3 on the 1-10 scale when I woke up - not bad.

Wednesday - That day I tried to get up and do things around the house. I browsed a lot on the computer, watched movies, and worked on my hobby stuff. One of the best ways to forget about the pain is to get your mind busy with something! I know all you feel like doing is sitting on the couch or laying in bed, but I found when I was actually doing something, the pain didn't bother me so much. Ate even more this day. I had lots of italian ice, water, crushed ice, mashed potatoes, smoothies, jello, pudding and even tried a piece of chicken, but didn't eat much of it. The sooner you can eat the better - obviously it's hard to recover when you're malnourished.
Fell asleep relatively well, got OK sleep, and managed to sleep in until 11 am.

Thursday - This day was really tough. At some points in the day it hurt so badly I cried, but I tried to stay medicated and relax which did help a little. I think this is a recovery in which things get worse before they get better

Friday - Another day in tonsillectomy hell. Conditions basically declined all week, with this day being the low. Cried a lot, not a good day.

Friday night - This is where I need help! I think my scabs have started to come off? I kind of hocked up these little white things (some brown) from the back of my throat, which was really painful. Are these the scabs starting to come off? Oh, and my mouth tastes absolutely DISGUSTING! I've been brushing my teeth, but there's only so much possible. Can anyone tell me what their scabs were like? What's the best way to handle them?

Now it's Saturday morning. Woke up feeling cruddy, but I took some meds and feeling much better. Hoping for a better day, I think I might be doing some shopping with my mom to get the pain off my mind.

Any advice for this 20 year old female on day 5? Anything, from the scabs, to pain, to good things to eat/drink/do? Thanks so much and best wished to all of you.

If you need to have this surgery done don't let these discussions scare you! Have it done, don't worry about the surgery, just be prepared to take a wee or so off from school or work. If having this surgery will lead to better health, have it done. The pain is not awful, you can do it, it will be worth it. Don't read this and think to yourself "definitely not having this done now!." In fact, I wouldn't read anything until after the operation :)

Forgot to mention - it is very difficult for me to blow my nose. Also, I've developed a thicker sometimes yellow snot when I am actually able to blow. Is this normal?

I am a 20 year old female who also had my tonsils out on the 3rd. It was also my first surgery. From what you've written, cyork, looks like we're pretty much in the same boat. :-)

The surgery went well-- my surgeon and his team put me at ease. The last thing I remember doing before being knocked out by anesthesia was laughing at some joke a nurse had told me. My first day wasn't bad at all, pain-wise. I went right to sleep when I got home. My doc said that I probably wouldn't have much of an appetite, but by goodness, was I hungry when I got home. I managed to eat some chicken noodle soup when I got home without too much trouble. However, when I took my first dose of vicodin later that night, I became looped-out beyond all belief-- I started laughing and crying at the same time! Makes sense: one of the side-effects is euphoria.

I spent most of Tuesday zoned-out on the vicodin-- I decided to take four teaspoons every six hours. I spent most of the day sleeping (my sleeping pattern quickly adjusted to my pain medication schedule) and watching the Office. I started eating ravioli without much trouble, although it was mashed up into much smaller chunks. Whenever I tried to talk, only these deep, throaty, guttural noises came out. Whenever I tried to get up, I felt extremely dizzy.

Wednesday was when all the awful post-tonsillectomy symptoms caught up with me. I started to feel the first pains of my scabs starting to form and harden. Sleep became more elusive, and breathing became a little more difficult after I took my pain medication. This was when I also noticed an awful taste in my mouth that just wouldn't go away. I also felt really nauseous all day, due mostly to the vicodin. However, I realized that there was something stuck in my throat, so I tried to gargle-- big mistake. It took every ounce of control to prevent me from vomiting. On closer inspection, I realized that the thing stuck in my throat was my uvula, which had swollen to about three times its regular size. It had me seriously freaking out. I also came down with a low grade fever (101 F) and was feeling pretty miserable. Cool cloths definitely helped. Pain was still manageable, though. To sleep, I propped myself up and just watched the Office and drank gatorade until I felt tired enough to sleep.

The pain definitely increased on Thursday, but medicine and sleep made it bearable. I was feverish for most of the day, but I was feeling better come nightfall. I did feel nauseous all day from the taste in my throat and my swollen uvula triggering my gag reflex. I felt really loopy on the vicodin-- I had a hard time remembering things, like when I had my last dose of vicodin, which may have resulted in some doubling-up. Not helpful! I should have kept a piece of paper with the dosage times written down. Hindsight is 20/20, though. Walking around a little and going outside on the porch helped alleviate some of the loopiness I was feeling, though. Although talking was still a little uncomfortable, I was able to talk for a while on the phone with a friend.
Thursday = gross day.

Friday was when my pain peaked. I think part of my scab started to come off. But I felt okay enough to gargle. I decreased my pain med dosage from four tsp to three tsp every six hours, mostly to alleviate the loopiness. I weighed myself and I had lost five pounds. Not bad.

Saturday I started to get better. My mom put warm compresses on my throat, which felt AMAZING. However, I started feeling a different kind of pain-- parts of my throat felt really raw when I swallowed. I assume that's where my scabs have come off. Still, I felt good enough to walk around the house and shower on my own (previously, my mom hung out in the bathroom while i showered in case I lost my balance). I was feeling famished at this point after having a diet consisting mostly of ravioli, chicken noodle soup, and italian ice. I snuck a couple of (very tender) pieces of chicken when my mom wasn't looking, which went down alright after a little more chewing than usual, although swallowing in general became a little more difficult. Not a bad day.

Sunday-- yesterday-- I was feeling more like myself. I decreased my pain med dosage from three tsp to two tsp. I spent a lot of the day in bed, but I walked around a bit, too. I snuck some (tender) bacon when my mom wasn't looking, and that tasted really good. However, I also ate a little bit of fresh tomato after, which I probably shouldn't have done. I think the acidity of the fresh tomato juice irritated the raw parts in my throat, because I was in PAIN-- the kind of pain that makes your eyes water and your jaw hurt. Definitely the worst pain I've felt since the surgery. So don't eat fresh tomatoes! I lay down after that, and after a while, I felt better. The day only got better after that. I even managed to eat some rice and curry for dinner that night (although the rice was very soft).

Today's Monday-- the one week mark-- and I'm feeling well on my way to recovery. Scabs seem to be coming off, so swallowing is a little difficult and a little uncomfortable, but not too painful. This morning after I woke up was fairly uncomfortable, but I think that was because my throat was a bit parched after not drinking for a while. My mom did the warm compress thing again, and that definitely helped.

Through it all, my two cents are:
1) definitely have someone around you know will take care of you, especially in the first few days after. it was hard for me to get around the house on my own, so having my mom and sister around was great.
2) warm compresses to the throat help alleviate any aches in the throat and ear, and they feeling amazing!
3) i know doctors are a bit on the fence about dairy products post-surgery, but I've found the coat it creates in the throat has made swallowing a bit easier, in terms of lubrication and somewhat covering the raw spots where scabs have come off.
4) Eat regularly. It was hard for me sometimes, but it helped the medicine go down easier.

Hope this helps. :-)

Hi, I'm a 26 y/o female and had a tonsillectomy/adenoidectomy on Tuesday, July 27. Since I went through so much and relied on the stories of others to get me through it, I thought I would share a couple of unique tips and my experience.

It's been 13 days and I'm almost back to my normal eating habits, but it was a pretty tough road. Like others said, Day 4 was the start of the real pain after the tonsillectomy. It lasted to about Day 8 and then got better. It took about a week and half for my voice to recover.

I used moist heat around my jaw and up to my ears to help with the IMMENSE pain that hits when you wake up from a nap or sleep. I used wet microwaved towels at first, but then got a moist heat wrap at CVS which worked really great - this is the item:


I also would wake up and put a hot wet washcloth to cover my mouth and nose when I breathed. That would always put me right back to sleep. Try to sleep with your mouth closed since it dries out the throat...but I know that's hard!!

You've got to drink lots of water and ice chips!! I also had gatorade and apple juice. I found that the ice chips were painful when you start but keep at it and it kind of numbs the throat, which is nice. I used a food chopper to make a sort of snow cone (without the flavor) and it worked well.

I also pushed myself to eat some not-so-soft foods to get some of that buildup off my tonsils. I had mini rice cakes with mashed refried beans and chewed VERY carefully. I got some extra protein and such in and I think it helped. Other 'different' things I ate were boiled eggs and avocado.

I did not experience the coughing up of the scabs like others did. I used a GENTLE, non-alcohol mouth rinse to brush my teeth and gargle a little bit when I could.

The greatest thing I did was use wet Q Tips to GENTLY GENTLY GENTLY wipe off excess scabs in my throat. That way, when they were ready to come off it wasn't painful at all and they didn't build up. Some might freak out at this suggestion, but if you have had tonsil stones and had to deal with those, then you know it's not really a big deal. This saved me so much disgust and frustration with the scabs because they weren't all stagnant and dead in my throat. YUCK.

Gargle with salt water as soon as you feel ready and that helps, too. Rent movies (I rented TV seasons since they last longer and waste more time). I was so fortunate to have my mom and sis take care of me, even through the night. You definitely need someone who can support you on the rough days.

Good luck and it's SOO worth it! My mouth feels infinitely cleaner (since before I suffered from big tonsil crypts and oozing gunk). :)

Hey everyone! This thread really helped me understand what to expect when I got my tonsils out, so I thought I'd add my own two cents so you can get another perspective on the recovery process.

I'm a 19 year old female and I'm on day 5 of my recovery. I'll post again in a week or so, as I've noticed there is not too many posts about the second week of recovery - hopefully this is because life gets back to normal!!

Day 1
The day of the surgery was by far the easiest day! It was my first surgery, but I wasn't nervous at all. The drugs they gave me through my IV right before I went under were FANTASTIC and made me feel amaaaazing. :D I felt great when I woke up, just a sore throat, though it felt like I had something gigantic stuck in the back of my throat, which turned out to be my uvula. SO BIG.
When I got home, I kept up on my medication and felt great! A friend came over to see how I was and I chatted with her for a while. Ate jello and drank ice water.

Day 2
The second day was a little tougher, but I was still very pleasantly surprised by how easily the recovery was going. I tried a milkshake and it wasn't as satisfying as I had hoped. :( I had a much rougher time getting the medication down... I was prescribed a liquid Roxicet, which tastes absolutely horrible and burns as it goes down. The worst part, though, is that liquid tends to get into your nasal passage if you don't swallow correctly. The medication would get "stuck" in my nose and mouth, which would burn and burn. My advice - learn how to get it down! Other than that, it was just more jello and water. My jaw and tongue hurt a LOT which was surprising to me. They still do. Just move them around a lot and the pain will get a little better.

Day 3
The third day was when hell started. My pain jumped up considerably. I got a little too cocky, I think, and didn't wake myself up during the night to take my medication. I was in incredible pain when I woke up. ALWAYS TAKE YOUR MEDICATION DURING THE NIGHT!! I barely drank any water that day, it was way too painful. I always end up feeling better in the evening for some reason and I was able to eat a cup of pudding. Some friends wanted to come over to see how I was doing, but I was feeling too tired/sick to even have them come. Do not underestimate how out of it you'll be. I also couldn't really form words at all.

Day 4
I woke up at 4am and started throwing up, which was horrifying. I was really scared of bleeding and getting dehydrated. I couldn't keep any water or my medication down and continued to throw up every 30 minutes until about 8am. We called the doctor and he said not to worry unless it continued all day. Fortunately, it didn't. The taste in my mouth was HORRIBLE and I couldn't seem to get it out. I felt better throughout the day and actually ate some salmon and mashed potatoes around dinner time! The salmon got stuck in my throat, but the potatoes were excellent. It also forced me to drink a lot of water. Later that evening, I was actually craving food, so I ate some mac&cheese, which went down GREAT.

OH! I only started using ice packs on my neck during day four, but use them right away!!! It makes you feel so much better.

Day 5
Is today! It's only noon, but today seems a little better. No vomiting, at least! I am able to talk better every day, which I hope is a sign that all the nasty stuff in my throat is getting smaller.

I feel like my throat is way worse than any other picture I've seen of a tonsillectomy. My tonsils were gigantic and I feel like I have two HUGE CAVERNS left, but they're both filled with brown and black goo. My uvula is still gigantic, literally giving a couple centimeters on both sides for swallowing and breathing. Everything is red and covered with white. My mouth constantly tastes terrible because of the "goo" where my tonsils used to be. Water tastes terrible because it passes by that stuff before I swallow it, but Gatorade is hard to drink because it builds up a lot of mucus.

The pain ebbs and flows. Sometimes I feel fine, sometimes I feel like I wish I would just die. The exhaustion is always there, though. I didn't realize that I'd be so stuck to the couch/bed! I really hope I start to feel better soon. I know this surgery was basically necessary for me, since my chronic tonsillitis interfered with my life so drastically, but I am not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel yet. Don't take this surgery lightly! However, don't be afraid if you really need to get it done. Lots of people go through it and lots of people survive. I saw my roommate during her 3rd week of recovery and didn't realize how difficult the last couple weeks had been for her. She was still very quiet and didn't have much energy. HOWEVER, a week or so later and she was back to the party girl she'd always been! Because of her, I know that I'll get back to my normal self, and you will, too!!

Good luck!